Bury St Edmunds Greene King workers begin week of strike action over pay

Workers at a major brewing company in Bury St Edmunds have today begun strike action after union representatives said a proposed pay increase did not go far enough.

Greene King drivers, bottle operatives and draymen are among workers to have joined picket lines in the town, as well as sites at Eastwood in Nottinghamshire and Abingdon in Oxfordshire.

Representatives of workers union, Unite, have warned that this week's strike and a further strike planned from December 19 will 'undoubtedly' cause shortages in the run up to Christmas.

Mark Jaina, Unite regional officer, said: "Initially it won't have too much impact on the consumers because they've stock piled products. But certainly over the next four weeks with the Christmas period looming and the second week of strike action, there will undoubtedly be shortages."

Earlier in the year, Unite submitted a pay claim of 7.85% which also involved other benefits such as sick pay arrangements and pension, but that was rejected by Greene King. The brewing business later made an initial counter offer of 4.85%, which was rejected by the union, and then an improved offer of 5%, which, with the real inflation rate, the union said would have amounted to wage cuts.

Mark added: "We balloted our members and they agreed the offers were too poor to accept and so we moved it forward to the industrial action process.

"We'll be taking industrial action for all of this week and I'm serving notice today for a week's strike action to take place from December 19.

"We've got a six month window for industrial action. It won't stop after these first two weeks. If they keep playing games, their reputation is going to be zero in this particular location.

"I don't think they'll ever recover from it if they want to keep treating their workers with contempt. In real terms, our members have lost over the last 10 years 21% on their earnings and that's too much to take. We're not going to back down."

The union would now like to start negotiations with Greene King at 10% plus.

A spokesman for Greene King said: "Our Bury St Edmunds and Abingdon depots continue operating with the large majority of our teams working their usual hours.

"Our Eastwood site continues to operate but in a slightly reduced capacity as expected. The robust contingency plans we put in place ahead of this week means pubs across the country continue to receive deliveries from us.

"We remain disappointed that the union encouraged its members to reject our offer and we’ve met regularly with members of Unite over the past few months and explained how we aim to be fair and consistent across our business, given the challenging wider economic environment currently."